Merlan – Whiting, European Whiting. Whiting the Fish on French Menus

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Whiting

Photograph courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library.

www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/6384086591/

    

Merlan, Lécaud, Nasellu, Varlet – Whiting; English Whiting; European Whiting; Golden Cutlet; Spelding.  Most of the whiting on French menus are caught off France's Atlantic coast or come from fish farms; only rarely is European whiting caught in the Mediterranean. Whiting is a tasty fish with a delicate flesh; the smaller fish may be grilled whole while larger fish will be prepared as filets served with a sauce and poached, sautéed or baked. Whiting, silver hake and blue whiting all tend to get mixed up on menus; these fish are also very similar when cooked, so just eat and enjoy.  Whiting will be on menus fresh, and smoked, and frozen filets are in all the supermarkets.

    

Whiting, European Whiting, on French Menus:

    

Filet de Merlan Mi-cuit, Compotée de Tomates à la Vanille de Sambava et sa Purée – Filet of whiting, very, very lightly cooked; served with a thickened puree of tomatoes flavored with the highly rated Black Bourbon Vanilla pods from around the town of Sambava in Madagascar.  The dish is accompanied by pureed potatoes.

   

Whiting, red mullet and shrimps.

Photograph courtesy of Yves Jalabert

www.flickr.com/photos/yves_jalabert/5078342972/

  

Merlan de Ligne Poêlé aux Girolles et au Coulis de Poivrons Grillés -  Whiting caught at sea, on a rod a line,  not, from a fish farm. Here the fish is lightly fried together with girolle chanterelle mushrooms and served with a puree of grilled sweet peppers. When fish are caught at sea the chef will often emphasize the fact, even if they are caught in a net. Fish are very much what they eat.

   

Whiting

Photograph courtesy of Tim Peters
www.flickr.com/photos/tim_peters/14614492106/

Merlan aux Herbes, Petit-Épeautre – Whiting cooked with herbs and served with small spelt. Small spelt is an ancient grain and today, in France, small spelt is only grown commercially in Provence in France. On some traditional Provencal dishes, small spelt may take the place of rice.

   

Rillettes de Merlan, Sauce Rouille, Vinaigrette à l'Anis Vert. - Rillettes served with a spicy rouilles and an aniseed-flavored vinaigrette. Rillettes may be made with fish, duck, goose or pork and are on the menu as an hors d’œuvre and sometimes as an entrée. Here the fish rillettes will have been slowly cooked in fat until the fish’s, meat can be made into a paste to spread on toast or bread. The Sauce Rouille is a thick, spicy sauce, made of peppers, tomatoes, garlic, saffron and olive oil all worked into bread or occasionally a potato base. Sauce Rouille is traditionally served alongside bouillabaisse and other fish soups. The diner adds the spicy sauce at his or her discretion to spice the soup or spread on toasted bread with grated cheese and soak in the soup. 

    

Competition for the catch of the day. 

Photograph courtesy of Shahin Abasov

www.flickr.com/photos/zoom_in/24737086047/

  

Terrine Maison de Merlan aux Crevettes Roses et Laitue de Mer  - The chef's pate of whiting with pink shrimps and sea lettuce.

   

Filets de Merlan

Photograph courtesy of patrick janicek

www.flickr.com/photos/marsupilami92/16877697217/

   

Merlan Poché à l'Huile de Cameline, Asperges - Whiting poached with camelina oil and asparagus.  Camelina oil comes from is a flowering plant in also known in English as gold-of-pleasure, or false flax, and German Sesame. This is an ancient plant that was already cultivated by the Celts as for its edible oil.  Other vegetables with higher oil production saw Camelina out of the market; however, today the high content of Omega 3 in Camelina has brought the oil back into popularity.  Camelina is popular in organic farming as it is resistant to many pests and disease. Use as a seasoning for salads and crudités or after cooking for your vegetables and grains and then camelina oil should not be heated. The whiting is accompanied by asparagus.

   

The camelina plant.

Photograph courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library.

   

 Years ago whiting was not considered a fish to serve in fine restaurants; in fact, it was a  very cheap fish.  Today's popularity of the whiting and its close family members show that times, prices and tastes change. Whiting will be starring in the finest restaurants. Whiting caught at sea will be larger and mostly served as filets. Whiting from fish farms will be smaller and may be served whole for a single diner.

European Whiting in the languages of France’s neighbors:

 

(Catalan - merlà),(Dutch - wijting), (German – wittling or merlan ),  (Italian – molo or merlano), (Spanish – liba, merla or merlán).

Merlan Bleu, Merlan de Paris, Merlus –– Blue Whiting.  When blue whiting and whiting are cooked and served it will be difficult for an amateur like me to see the difference.  The taste will be similar and the occasional confusion on a menu will not be serious. Blue whiting is at home in the Mediterranean while the European whiting is not. In Provence, the merlan, the European whiting, on your menu may well be merlan bleu, blue whiting.

Blue Whiting in the languages of France’s neighbors:

(Catalan – Melu), (Dutch - blauwe wijting), (German - blauer wittling), (Italian – melu or potassolo) (Spanish- bacalá).

    

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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Copyright 2010,  2016, 2018.

Laguiole AOP Cheese. One of France's finest cheeses.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Aged Laguiole cheese.
Photograph courtesy of Céline MOSNIER
www.flickr.com/photos/hirondellecanada/3073174098/

Laguiole AOP is a 45% fat (30.5% dry weight), hard, unpasteurized, cow's milk cheese; it has a light golden color with a pleasant smell and a light, slightly fruity taste. The cheese is aged from 4 to 24 months. From a blind tasting of a six-month and an 18-month Laguiole AOP, the younger cheese was excellent, while the 18-month-old cheese was more like an aged cheddar with a slight bite.

The Aubrac cow.
Photograph courtesy of Olivier Bacquet
www.flickr.com/photos/olibac/6008729138/

The Laguiole AOP cheese may only be made with milk from the Simmental and Aubrac cows. The cows graze freely for seven months a year on the Aubrac high basalt plateau between 800 and 1400 meters for close to seven months a year. In the winter, the cows are brought into barns and fed on the grasses and wild herbs collected from the Aubrac plateau during the summer. Milk production and refining of cheese must be carried out in the geographical area of the Aubrac, where less than 80 farms in the departments of Aveyron, Cantal, and Lozère are authorized to provide milk for this cheese. The cheese is named after the village of Laguiole. (The village and the cheese's name Laguiole AOP is pronounced is lay-ole, do not pronounce the g). 

There are another eight AOP cheeses linked to the Aubrac Plateau, and they have their own French language websites. These unique cheeses are Laguiole, Salers, Cantal, Fourme d'Ambert, Pélardon, Rocamadour, Saint-Nectaire, and Bleu d'Auvergne).

The village of Laguiole.
Photograph courtesy of lns1122
www.flickr.com/photos/minijoegreen/21512662653/

Buying Laguiole Cheese

Should you decide to take a whole Laguiole AOC cheese home from France, you may encounter some difficulties; the smallest cheese weighs 20 kilos, and others weigh up to 50 kilos. I imagine all airlines would appreciate the extra income when you bring one of these cheeses as excess baggage. To avoid problems, buy a large wedge, maybe one kilo, and pack it well in a plastic bag. Where possible, buy from a professional fromager, a cheese shop, since most offer packaging in vacuum bags and may well provide a taste of a mature cheese as well. However, as this is not a soft cheese, it will travel well even if the bag is not vacuumed. Once home, keep this and all hard-yellow cheeses wrapped in plastic wrap in a refrigerator, but not in the freezer. When you open your cheese and cut a wedge, an hour before serving, rewrap your cheese and return it to the fridge; it should keep well for 8 -10 weeks if you let it last that long. Laguiole, the village, is in the department of Aveyron in the administrative region of Occitanie. For more about buying cheese in France and taking it home, click here.

Aligot.
Photograph courtesy of Tavallai
www.flickr.com/photos/tavallai/5850019237/

One of the most popular dishes made with Laguiole is Aligot, a traditional, very tasty, potato, and a cheese-based dish made in Aveyron with a young Lagouille cheese or an unsalted Tome (Tomme) Fraîche d'Aubrac. For Aligot, the cheese is mixed into mashed potatoes along with garlic, crème fraiche, milk, and butter. This combination is carefully stirred until long threads of cheese and potato may be drawn from the pot. The Aligot will usually be served with a small, pork, salami type sausage. In an upscale restaurant, the Aligot may have slices of beef added. (The original Aligot recipe is claimed as their own by two neighboring departments, Hérault and Lozère, and the cheese differs in each of the departments).

The ski station in Lagouile
Photograph courtesy of Tourism Aveyron.

There is more to Aveyron and Laguiole than excellent cheeses.

The Aveyron department is a beautiful place for fishermen and women as it has five major rivers plus hundreds of streams and tens of lakes. Aveyron will be on many menus throughout France including their Bœuf Fermier d'Aubrac, Label Rouge, their mostly free-range red label Aubrac beef-cattle. Also look-out for their Label Rouge, red label, Agneau Laiton de l'Aveyron, lambs between 70-140 days; that and Aveyron's famous veal, their Label Rouge, red label, Veau d'Aveyron et du Ségala I.G.P.  

The cutlery of Laguiole

Laguiole's village is also famous for "La Maison du Laguiole," the Laguiole knife's creators. Their knives, other cutlery, kitchen equipment, and their very individual corkscrews are appreciated worldwide. If you are in the area, worry not, they do have a factory outlet shop for visitors! Many French sommeliers, wine stewards, pride themselves on only using Laguiole corkscrews; this is the Rolls Royce of the limonadier type of corkscrew. The French for a corkscrew is Tire-Bouchon, the most famous of these French corkscrews in the "Limonadier," also called the Couteau Sommelier.

Maison du Laguiole “Limonadier”
Photograph courtesy of La Maison du Laguiole

The name Limonadier comes from its original users' trade, for whom this particular corkscrew was created, they were soft drink vendors. Three hundred years ago, most wines were not sold in bottles; they were sold in barrels, though soft drinks were sold in bottles, and sealed with a cork. When this corkscrew was created, only a few fine wines were corked, and 99% of the population never saw them. The Limonadier is the corkscrew with a lever to assist in pulling the cork out. The name came from the shops, also called Limonadiers, which were early 17th-century soft drink shops and also the name of the profession of those who sold soft drinks. These stores opened the bottles of the non-alcoholic beverages they sold with the corkscrew called the Limonadier. Three-hundred years later, The French national association representing café owners is still called the Syndicat National des Limonadiers. 

A Laguiole bread knife.
Photograph courtesy of La Maison du Laguiole

If you are visiting Aveyron

The local Aveyron Tourist Information Offices will give you a list of over 100 wineries, farms, dairies, and other local producers in the department who open their farms and wineries to visitors. N.B. When visiting most farms and wineries, a small contribution to the local economy is expected. You may also have the list sent to you long before you leave home and plan your visits.

The Aveyron Tourist Information English language website is:

http://www.tourisme-aveyron.com/index_en.php

I have intentionally avoided recommending restaurants, as chefs and menus change; however, in the case of the village of Laguiole, I have made an exception. If your credit card is in good shape, consider the two-star Michelin Guide restaurant, Le Suquet, above the village. Le Suquet is owned and run by one of France's true master-chefs, Michel Bras, and his son Sébastien who, since 2009, is in charge. Fifty years with the same chef and all those Michelin Stars is long enough to consider making a recommendation. In 2017 Sébastien Bras turned down their three Michelin stars saying he no longer wished to be included in the Red Michelin Guide and "wanted to give a new meaning to my life." Nevertheless, in 2019 Michelin returned two stars, Le Suquet is simply too good.

The Le Suquet English language website is:

http://www.bras.fr/en/

Wine in Aveyron

When ordering wine, consider the Marcillac AOP, the most famous red wine of Aveyron, and try the local IGP Aveyron (previously the Aveyron Vin de Pays). These wines include whites, roses, and red.

--------------------------------

 

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Copyright, 2010, 2016, 2020 

--------------------------------

Are you searching for words, names,

or phrases on French Menus? 

Just add the word, words, or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" and search with Google. Behind the French Menu's links include hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are over 470 articles that include over 4,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.

------------------

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